


like a toxic daydream

by xinghly



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Obsession (EXO Music Video), M/M, Overstimulation, Self-cest, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:01:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21727177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xinghly/pseuds/xinghly
Summary: Baëkhyun’s eyes flash, fierce and dark. His hands curl lightly around Baekhyun’s face, bringing it up to his own, and Baekhyun only spares a second to think about how feverish they feel - not anything he’d expect from an artificial clone - before Baëkhyun is continuing, voice dropping lower and lower as he keeps talking.“A lonely fighter, separated from his team and wandering straight into my territory—” one of his hands trails down Baekhyun’s chest— “like he doesn’t know what I could do to him. Like he doesn’t know how he could make mefeel.” The hand lingers, smoothing over Baekhyun’s waist, and Baekhyun, inexplicably, feels heat begin to stir in his abdomen against his will. “Tell me, sweetheart. Does being EXO make you feel any safer? Does it make you confident, so confident that you think you can just walk in here like I wouldn’townyou? Or are - you -scared?”
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Byun Baekhyun
Comments: 25
Kudos: 252





	like a toxic daydream

**Author's Note:**

> ahaha this is definitely NOT what I thought would be the first thing I post to this site and god I am so rusty but look I just could not get the idea of baekbaëk out of my head after [this teaser pic](https://twitter.com/weareoneEXO/status/1196080553109467137). so 
> 
> for the record this is all sm’s fault

It’s a fail. It’s a _complete_ fail. 

Baekhyun curses under his breath as he turns into another dead end. “Fuck,” he mutters, and immediately starts running back the way he’d come, footsteps fast and heavy against the shiny linoleum floors. A dim yellow light sputters and blinks out in the corner of his eye. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

The moment Sehun had strayed from Baekhyun’s side, eyes eerily glazed and focused on something invisible in the distance, Baekhyun should’ve known. Or maybe he should’ve realized something was up from the moment they’d entered the creepy abandoned building to begin with. Maybe even further back than that, when Junmyeon had first briefed them on the situation back in their safehouse - _evil clones_ , he’d said, as if this was some kind of D-list action movie plot - but the point is, Baekhyun really, really should’ve been more careful, because now he’s lost and powerless in the middle of a maze of dark hallways with the rest of EXO nowhere to be found. 

He can feel it, now, along with the panic rapidly rising in his chest. It’s way too dark. As the only member who’d lost his powers, Baekhyun had been paired with Sehun and ordered to not leave his side at any cost, but they hadn’t expected _this_. Steady, put-together Sehun would never have abandoned Baekhyun to chase after his own clone. Something is up. Something that, Baekhyun would bet, has everything to do with the evil force they’re hunting down in the first place. 

His shoes squeak as he halts abruptly at yet another dead end. Baekhyun bites his lip hard enough to hurt and turns, preparing to go back to the four-way crossroads he’d come from. 

The return path suddenly goes completely pitch-black.

“What the fuck,” he mutters, hand automatically going to the weapon at his waist. The halls had been lit just a second ago. Not _well_ , but at least enough for Baekhyun - whose strength relies on the light around him - to not feel weak. He spins around. The only place that’s not totally dark is the dead end in front of him, cheap fluorescent lights flickering on the ceiling. “Shit. How—”

“You’ve got quite the dirty mouth, haven’t you?”

Baekhyun tenses up. He knows that voice. Very well, in fact. Because it’s his own. 

He turns, very slowly, and then he sees it. 

_Him_. 

Baëkhyun emerges from the pool of darkness like a tangible ghost, all sharp edges and a faint silver aura, languid steps echoing against the walls as he makes his way to the dead end where Baekhyun is. He’s got a classic fencing sabre propped up on one shoulder, identical to the one Baekhyun has strapped to his waist. There’s a lot about him that’s identical. Which is expected, honestly, for someone who’s supposed to be a clone - he has Baekhyun’s face, Baekhyun’s stature, Baekhyun’s broad shoulders and graceful hands, even Baekhyun’s relaxed expression as he comes closer and closer with the easy confidence of a predator that’s cornered its prey. 

The Red Force has done a scarily perfect job. Baekhyun narrows his eyes and draws his own sabre, pointing it at the spot directly between his counterpart’s brows. 

Junmyeon’s calm voice reverberates in his head. _Find your clone from X-EXO. Capture him. Subdue him. Do everything that is necessary for an elimination._

“Don’t come any closer,” Baekhyun says, low, “unless you want a slash across the face.”

Baëkhyun just raises an eyebrow and keeps advancing, not even faltering in his steps. Adrenaline courses through Baekhyun’s veins. His gaze jumps from Baëkhyun’s eyes - glacier blue, now _that’s_ something different - to take in his features, then to his chest, and finally down to his feet.

Baëkhyun has platinum-white hair like his own, but while Baekhyun’s is dyed, the clone’s is probably one hundred percent natural. A thin silver chain hangs across his face from one ear to the other, drooping down and stopping somewhere at his elbows. Two long feathers curl around the right side of his head. He’s dressed in shiny black leather from head to toe. When Baekhyun lifts his stare to Baëkhyun’s face again, mystified, his own stares back; save for the extraordinary eyes and the unnaturally red lips, it’s almost as if he’s looking directly into a mirror. 

A last step, and Baëkhyun finally stops, barely a meter away. The tip of Baekhyun’s sabre is trembling just a hair’s breadth from his pale nose. “Don’t be like that,” Baëkhyun coos. “We don’t want to fight, now, do we?”

“Speak for yourself.” Baekhyun hopes his voice doesn’t betray the rapid thumping of his heart. “I’m here to eliminate you.”

Another eyebrow raise. Baekhyun wonders if the Red Force has copied his mannerisms, too. He can’t possibly look _that_ smug when he’s managed to get something he wants. It’s borderline infuriating; heats his blood and makes him crave a violent and ferocious battle. 

“You say that, but you don’t actually believe you can overpower me even one bit, do you?”

“Do you only know how to speak in questions or something?” Baekhyun spits, brandishing his sabre. “Because it’s getting really—”

_Crash_. In barely a fraction of a heartbeat, Baëkhyun has gripped the end of Baekhyun’s sabre and sent it flying into the darkness behind him. Baekhyun’s palm stings painfully from where his weapon had been forcefully wrenched out of his grasp. He falls back, eyes wide, as Baëkhyun tilts his head at him and smiles a creeping smile, slow and unforgiving.

“Oh, no,” Baëkhyun says. “In fact, I think you’ll find that I have a lot to say.”

He starts walking again, but this time Baekhyun has no weapon in addition to nowhere to go. He’s forced to press his back to the cold wall behind him as his clone invades his space. This close, he can practically inhale full breaths of the peculiar scent clinging to Baëkhyun’s body. It’s something heady, musky, and definitely nothing Baekhyun can identify. It smells dangerous. Almost like blood. 

“Poor thing, abandoned and all alone. Have your cowardly teammates finally chosen to leave you behind?”

If his clone wanted to get to him, he’s succeeded. Baekhyun snarls. “Never. EXO are a _family_ —”

“Sure, sure,” Baëkhyun says dismissively, waving a hand. He comes to a stop right in front of Baekhyun, icy eyes trained directly on his mouth. “But they don’t know how to take care of you.”

“What are you—”

“Tell me, hero.” His counterpart’s voice has dropped to something soft and sultry, and involuntarily, Baekhyun shivers. Baëkhyun tips his chin with one finger, forcing Baekhyun to meet his strangely coloured eyes. “Where has all of your light gone?”

Baekhyun’s body instantly goes cold. _The clones know_. That hadn’t been part of the brief that Junmyeon had delivered. It’s true that the Red Force had been the very thing to steal his power away from him in the first place, but they’re a wild, intricately chaotic type of energy, and EXO have never been able to learn how they were truly organized. They’d placed their hopes on X-EXO not knowing the whole situation with Baekhyun’s lost abilities, but if Baëkhyun knows of it, can speak of it so easily...

Then it’s only logical to assume that they know everything else too. The orbs. The struggle in the Cube. The loss of two of their fighters - the loss of their _healer_ — 

“Calm down,” Baëkhyun murmurs, amusement obvious in the way his voice lilts at the end of his words. He twirls a finger through Baekhyun’s hair and pulls, just slightly. “I’m not going to tell your precious secret. Rest assured; I’m the only one who knows.”

It’s not particularly comforting. “How...”

“...Did I guess? Well.” Baëkhyun shrugs, and the movement makes his feathers flutter. “It’s mine now.”

It takes a beat for Baekhyun to understand, but when he does, white-hot anger rushes through his veins, so hot and all-consuming that he forgets _he’s_ the one in the precarious position at the moment. He grips Baëkhyun’s collar in his fists, sweat making the leather slick under his skin. Baëkhyun’s sabre clatters to the floor. “You - give it back—”

“Whoa, whoa,” his clone laughs, thin fingers coming up to circle around Baekhyun’s own as Baekhyun seethes. “You’re not very bright, are you?” One corner of his lips edges up as if he’s made a particularly clever joke. “For one of your kind, you aren’t observant at all. How do you think I turned off those lights?”

“You bastard!” He’s using _Baekhyun’s_ power. _Baekhyun’s_ light. The thing that had been stolen away from him, leaving him vulnerable and with a terrifyingly unfamiliar emptiness in his chest. “How - how dare you—”

“Please, you flatter me.” The slightly curved line of Baëkhyun’s rosy mouth turns into a full smirk. “ _I_ didn’t do anything, you know. It came to me all on its own.”

In another insane maneuver, so quick Baekhyun barely catches it with his eyes, Baëkhyun shakes off Baekhyun’s death grip on his collar and presses him to the wall so harshly that he’s forced to catch his breath. 

“Just like you did, hmm?” 

Baëkhyun’s eyes flash, fierce and dark. His hands curl lightly around Baekhyun’s face, bringing it up to his own, and Baekhyun only spares a second to think about how feverish they feel - not anything he’d expect from an artificial clone - before Baëkhyun is continuing, voice dropping lower and lower as he keeps talking. 

“A lonely fighter, separated from his team and wandering straight into my territory—” one of his hands trails down Baekhyun’s chest— “like he doesn’t know what I could do to him. Like he doesn’t know how he could make me _feel_.” The hand lingers, smoothing over Baekhyun’s waist, and Baekhyun, inexplicably, feels heat begin to stir in his abdomen against his will. “Tell me, sweetheart. Does being EXO make you feel any safer?” Baëkhyun’s frigid eyes bore straight through his, but unlike before, now there’s a spark of something burning in those blue depths. He tips Baekhyun’s chin again, letting him get so close that he can feel Baëkhyun’s warm breaths puffing against his face. “Does it make you confident? So confident that you think you can just walk in here like I wouldn’t _own_ you? Or are - you - _scared_?”

Baekhyun means to answer. He honestly does. He wants to say, _of course not_ , or pull off some fantastically strong move that throws Baëkhyun across the hall and allows him to escape. But when he opens his mouth, wide eyes still fixed on that impenetrable blue gaze, all that comes out is a long, low moan. 

A beat. Then Baëkhyun slams him into the wall again, hand tightening bruisingly hard around Baekhyun’s waist. “You’re the one who wants this,” his clone rasps, fingers gripping around Baekhyun’s cheek, and Baekhyun moans again, helpless in the face of all that overwhelming pressure. ”You have to say it to me. Say you want this.”

Baekhyun inhales a shaky breath, eyelids fluttering as heat assaults his stomach. “I want this,” he chokes out, voice breaking in the middle but _sure_ , and Baëkhyun growls and pushes his knee forcefully between Baekhyun’s thighs. 

It’s merciless. Baëkhyun sets a brutal rhythm right from the start, grinding against Baekhyun with a type of precise strength that has his erection swelling against his leg in a matter of seconds. The friction only seems amplified by the material of their clothes. Baëkhyun dips his head to Baekhyun’s nape and bites, hard enough to probably draw blood, and Baekhyun keens at the sudden spike of painful pleasure. His nails dig into Baëkhyun’s shoulders. Is this how it feels to be with himself, Baekhyun wonders? He’s never had the time for that kind of thing, despite being a healthy twenty-seven-year-old man, none of EXO do with the lives they lead, but if _this_ is what it feels like—

Baëkhyun laves his tongue over the spot he’d sunk his teeth into, warm and wet, and all of Baekhyun’s thoughts evaporate to be replaced by pure arousal. “You want me to leave a mark?” Baëkhyun mutters. He presses his leg to the tent in Baekhyun’s pants and rubs, harsh and unforgiving, and Baekhyun’s breath stutters in his lungs. “Want me to put a bruise on your perfect skin for everyone to see, yeah? For your _teammates_ to see?”

Baekhyun’s dick jerks at the thought. It’s so dirty, imagining the rest of EXO knowing exactly what he’d done, but somehow it sends even more blood rushing south to his groin. “I,” he tries, but his voice comes out thick. Baëkhyun sucks at another patch of skin closer to his collarbone, and Baekhyun pants, ”fuck,” and gives up, leaning back against the wall and letting Baëkhyun take him apart. 

He’s damp with precome, at this point, underwear sticking to the outline of his hard cock. Heat fizzles in his head and makes his knees go weak. He would’ve collapsed already if Baëkhyun wasn’t holding him up against the wall, and just thinking about that effortless strength sends another zap of arousal to the pit of his stomach. Baëkhyun suddenly shifts and changes his pace, slowing down but forgoing none of the force, and Baekhyun chokes at the overwhelming wave of pleasure that hits him like a truck. The grind is _filthy_ , unhurried but deliberate - Baekhyun feels another moan rising in his throat, heartbeat skyrocketing in beat with Baëkhyun’s laboured breaths against his shoulder. 

“Come on,” he demands, not caring about how needy he must sound, “hurry _up_ , come on—”

Baëkhyun hikes Baekhyun’s leg up around his waist and pushes harder. “So desperate,” he murmurs, voice irritatingly composed. “You’re getting off so much on this. Keep going and I might be inclined to believe that you walked in here on purpose, baby.”

The pet name, despite everything, still manages to turn Baekhyun’s mind into a haze of desire. “No,” he grits out, swallowing, “no, I came here to—”

“Yes, I know,” Baëkhyun continues, still in that measured tone. He lowers his mouth and speaks directly into the crook of Baekhyun’s neck, causing tremors to wrack up Baekhyun’s spine. “You’re here to eliminate me. Isn’t that what you said?” His hips keep moving against Baekhyun’s erection, and Baekhyun hisses at a particularly sharp thrust, cock pulsing pathetically in his pants. 

“I—”

“But look where we are now. You need to stop lying to yourself, sweetheart.” Baëkhyun’s hand goes down, down, until he’s directly cupping the bulge in Baekhyun’s pants, and Baekhyun’s eyes roll back in his head at the touch, breath hitching on a soft whimper as his head swims with arousal. 

“You want me,” Baëkhyun says. He sounds so sure, so confident. “It’s written all over your face. You hate me, but you want me _bad_.” He presses his fingertips down, and Baekhyun nearly cries out at the intense pleasure of finally, finally being touched, legs shuddering around Baëkhyun’s wrist. “I could do anything at all to you right now, and you’d agree to it, wouldn’t you? You'd let me. Just because you’re so damn good.”

The mocking praise, if it can even be called that, gets to Baekhyun in ways he can’t even explain. He feels overheated with want, with dangerous, impulsive hunger. His erection aches heavily between his thighs. Then Baëkhyun squeezes, just barely - fist curling around the head of Baekhyun’s dick - and it’s over, he loses it, coming messily and uncontrollably with a choked off moan, wetting the inside of his pants. 

Baëkhyun removes his hand and watches Baekhyun quiver through the aftershocks with dark blue eyes. His other hand strokes softly through Baekhyun’s silver hair, not stopping until Baekhyun’s finished and panting, head resting against the wall, feeling like a useless pile of mush.

“Look at you,” Baëkhyun murmurs. He trails a single finger over the inside of Baekhyun’s thigh, and Baekhyun jerks and whines from the oversensitivity. “Soaking your pants like this with me barely even touching you? What would your heroic teammates say?”

Baekhyun swallows around the embarrassing noise rising in his throat. “Shut up,” he says, but it comes out weak, with barely any heat at all. 

The finger is still stroking against his leg. Baëkhyun looks, intently and with hooded eyes as he moves it up, up, until it’s directly at the seam of Baekhyun’s pants. The moment he rubs the pad of it over the head of Baekhyun’s soft cock again, Baekhyun’s hand comes up to hurriedly slap over his mouth, pressing his fingers against his lips as he trembles through another ruthless onslaught of pleasure. 

It’s far too much far too soon. He’d just had one draining, mind-blowing orgasm; he can’t possibly be brought to another. But even as he thinks this, he’s already hardening again, helpless to Baëkhyun’s touch, and Baekhyun has to bite down hard on his hand to stifle an instinctive moan. 

Baëkhyun’s lips quirk up in a satisfied half-smirk at Baekhyun’s reaction. “What do you think, sweetheart,” he whispers, bringing his finger up to his red, red mouth. His tongue flicks out and licks over it, positively filthy. “Think I could make you come again?”

Baekhyun wants to say no. He _should_ say no. At this point, he’s strayed about as far from the _capture your clone and eliminate him_ objective as he can get. The EXO part of him knows, knows that he should put a stop to this to salvage his pride and try his best to overpower Baëkhyun so he can finish the mission, but a deeper, darker part of him practically sings at the thought of doing the opposite: giving in, letting go, allowing his counterpart to wreck him all over again until he’s nothing but a shaking mess against the wall. 

Then Baëkhyun brings his fingers back between Baekhyun’s legs and he stops thinking. “Please,” he says, voice cracking. He throws his head back and shudders as Baëkhyun touches, light, just barely grazing his cock over his pants. “Please.”

He can almost feel the smugness radiating off of Baëkhyun’s body. “That’s more like it,” the clone purrs, and continues on. 

Like this, under Baëkhyun’s relentless hand, Baekhyun _wants_. It doesn’t seem to matter to his body that he’d come just minutes ago. He trembles as Baëkhyun strokes him all the same, as Baëkhyun gives it all to him, massaging his hard length through his wet pants and whispering praises into his ear that make Baekhyun’s legs strain with the effort of keeping himself upright. It’s a struggle to breathe. His hands come up, tangling in Baëkhyun’s silver locks and pulling, and Baëkhyun hums his approval into the skin of Baekhyun’s neck. 

“That’s right,” he says lowly. “You’re sick of being good, aren’t you? So, so sick of it.” He sucks another mark over Baekhyun’s collarbone, breathes, “So let me take care of you,” and Baekhyun whimpers and tightens his grasp in Baëkhyun’s silky hair. 

His whole head is full of the hot desire rushing through his body. The overstimulation hurts, but it feels so good that Baekhyun doesn’t even _care_ , just holds onto Baëkhyun and tries his best not to pass out. When Baëkhyun gives a particularly rough stroke, biting down sharply into Baekhyun’s bare shoulder at the same time, Baekhyun cries out and comes again, warmth seeping through his pants and onto Baëkhyun’s fingers. His head buzzes, his pulse goes into overdrive, and he finally collapses into a heap on the floor at his counterpart’s feet. 

It takes a very long time for the pounding in his chest to slow. The corners of Baekhyun’s vision are still fuzzy when he opens his eyes, blinking away the tears he didn’t even know were there. Baëkhyun is nothing but a dark shadow above him; when Baekhyun struggles up on his elbows, feeling completely boneless, his clone is bending down and gracefully picking up the sabre he’d dropped earlier off the floor. 

“If you’re going to kill me,” Baekhyun croaks, “could you get on with it, please?”

He doesn’t know what he expects, but it’s not Baëkhyun barely sparing him a glance as he hoists the long blade over his shoulder again. “I’m not going to kill you.”

And, well, that’s even more unexpected. Baekhyun squints at the silhouette in front of him. Baëkhyun’s dusting off his shoulders and settling his sabre so that it’s steady in his grip, thin fingers wrapped securely around the hilt. “You haven’t gone soft on me, now, have you?” he asks, wincing at the burn in his muscles when he tries to shift to a sitting position. 

Baëkhyun snorts. “Quite the contrary,” he says dryly. He turns to face Baekhyun, and Baekhyun’s eyes are immediately drawn to the noticeable tent in his leather pants as he walks over. “But I’m sure you wouldn’t understand.”

“Then… why…”

Baëkhyun stares down at him. The burning spark in his cold eyes is gone, but there’s still _something_ there, hidden at the corner of all that supernatural, synthetic blue. “I may be evil,” he says slowly, “but even I’m not pathetic enough to take down my opponent when I know they can’t put up a good fight.” The wicked silver point of his sabre glints as he turns. “Where’s the fun in that?”

And then he’s walking away, melting back into the darkness like he’d never even been here in the first place. 

Baekhyun is left to gape at the empty hall. Then his senses kick in, and he drops his head against the wall and exhales. _Fuck_ , he thinks. His eyes go, automatically, to the blinking lights on the ceiling, looking like they’re about ten seconds away from going out. 

_Double fuck_. 

He fumbles for the communication piece strapped to his waist. It hadn’t worked back when Baekhyun had gotten separated from Sehun, only giving him cracking white noise when he tried to dial, but it’s at least worth a shot now. He punches in the string of numbers and symbols Junmyeon had forced them all to memorize, holding his breath, and waits. 

Chanyeol picks up barely a second after the last beep ends. “61,” he says, voice wary. 

Baekhyun could cry with relief. “Chanyeol, it’s me. 04. Can you hear me?”

“ _Baekhyun_?” There’s a loud noise on the other side, like Chanyeol’s dropped his earpiece, before his voice comes back. “Where are you? Why are you calling so soon? Are you hurt?”

“No,” Baekhyun says. His voice comes out all weak and raspy, and he can practically hear Chanyeol’s concern immediately spike through the device. “Just - can you just come, please? I’m somewhere at the end of all the hallways.”

“Baekhyunnie,” Chanyeol says, alarmed, “what happened? Are you alright? Where’s—”

“I’m okay. Alive. Mostly.” Baekhyun shuts his eyes and slumps further down the wall, wincing at the sticky mess in his pants. Overhead, the dim fluorescent lights flicker, once, twice, and Baekhyun just _knows_ they’re going to wink out sometime within the next few minutes. He can sense it, even with what feels like a gaping hole in his chest where his power used to be; if the hall manages to plunge into darkness soon, which it undoubtedly will, he’ll be in deep trouble.

That’s what Chanyeol is for. Among EXO, he’s the closest thing Baekhyun can get to light. 

“It’s the dark,” Baekhyun manages. “I need your fire—”

Chanyeol understands instantly. “Got it,” he says, voice turning dead serious, and Baekhyun catches the sound of heavy running steps before his connection snaps off.

He sighs and settles into his corner, feeling too much like a pile of jelly to move. All Baekhyun can do now is wait for Chanyeol to come. It’s a testament to how drained he feels that only a hint of mortification burns in his stomach at the thought of Chanyeol finding him like this, collapsed against the wall, cheeks probably still flushed and with a very noticeable dark stain over his crotch. 

_Fuck the Red Force_ , Baekhyun thinks, with feeling. 

He doesn’t know how long it takes Chanyeol to come barreling down the corridor, panting and with a hand on the gun strapped to his waist - just that it’s long enough for the ceiling lights to almost completely go out. Baekhyun watches through half-lidded eyes as Chanyeol hurries over and drops to his knees next to him. “God, Baekhyunnie,” Chanyeol frets, searingly warm palm already coming up to press at his cheek, “what happened to y—”

His voice closes off on an odd squeak. Baekhyun opens his eyes and sees Chanyeol’s eyes go wide, trailing from his face down to his bare neck and then stopping, disbelievingly, at his crotch. 

A hot flush of humiliation courses through Baekhyun’s entire body. “Chanyeol, the fire, if you don’t mind,” he snaps, and Chanyeol jolts and brings his eyes back to Baekhyun’s face.

“R-Right. Uh. Sorry.”

Chanyeol lights up his left palm, careful to not let the flames burn Baekhyun, and holds it up in front of Baekhyun’s eyes. His ears are suspiciously red-tipped as he determinedly stares at the wall beside them and avoids Baekhyun’s gaze. Baekhyun inhales, exhales. The light from the fire isn’t anywhere near as strong as his own - or what _used_ to be his own - but it’s more than enough, and he relaxes as he feels the glow wash over his skin and spread throughout his blood. 

Chanyeol clears his throat. “Good?”

“Good,” Baekhyun sighs. 

“So… are you going to tell me what happened?”

Baekhyun scowls. “No,” he says scathingly. Then, as an afterthought, he adds, “Fuck the Red Force.”

A pause. Then Chanyeol ducks his head and mumbles, “It kind of looks like you already did that,” and Baekhyun has never wanted to die more in his _life_. 

“Can we please not talk about this right now?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Chanyeol coughs. The fire in his hand sputters, and he flexes his fingers a little to bring the blaze back. “Um - where’s Sehun?”

Baekhyun tenses. “I don’t know. We got separated somewhere in the middle of the building.”

“And... the others?”

“Nothing so far. You’re the only one I’ve been in contact with.”

“Oh.” Chanyeol bites his lip, moves his hand a bit closer to Baekhyun’s face.

It’s nothing to worry about. Shouldn’t be worrying. EXO are strong, after all; they’ve been through so much together that they’re beyond just a unit, at this point. Baekhyun curls his body a little closer to the warm flames in Chanyeol’s hand, breathing in the feeling of light in his lungs, and tries to ignore the nervous twist to Chanyeol’s mouth.

Sehun should be fine. The others should be fine, too. All he can do right now is let Chanyeol’s fire charge up his strength again, and then they can try to reunite with everyone else. 

Chanyeol shuffles next to him as if sensing his thoughts. “Look,” he begins, “I don’t even know if I want to ask this, but your clone—”

Baekhyun groans. “What about him?”

“Did you manage to beat him somehow? Or is he gone?”

“He’s gone.”

“Oh,” Chanyeol says again. He inches his feet closer to Baekhyun’s own and frowns. Over Baekhyun’s shoulder, his hand hovers protectively, flames crackling and golden-bright. “He just - got away? What was he like?”

The curious question stumps Baekhyun for a moment. What was Baëkhyun like? The exact same, yet fundamentally different, he thinks. The perfect opposite. Something artificial and unnatural and yet so human, made up of hot breaths against Baekhyun’s neck and a poisonously sweet voice caressing his ear. He tries to envision Baëkhyun’s face in his head, but only gets as far as remembering the way he’d said _you want me_ , like it was a fact set in stone. Like he wholeheartedly believed that he’d barely have to crook a finger before Baekhyun would fall willingly to his knees. 

Heat flutters at the base of Baekhyun’s stomach - heat that has nothing to do with the fire glowing in Chanyeol’s palm. 

“Annoying,” Baekhyun mutters, and decidedly does not think about icy eyes and a soft, deadly mouth. “Don’t worry. I’ll get him next time.”

**Author's Note:**

> me, shoving as many of my exo lore theories as possible into 1 fic: it’s free real estate
> 
> if you've made it all the way here, thank you very much for reading! (and sorry for any mistakes I wrote this in like 4 hours whoops)


End file.
